A Necessary Journey

Light began to slowly filter through the darkness, bright and blinding as he slowly tested his eyes against it. He was on his back, a bed? From his right side, a hand gently squeezed his and he heard the scrape of metal chair legs against the floor, loud in the silence of the room,  a hand reached out to softly caressed his face.

"Omer?"

He turned to the voice, the outline of his visitor becoming clear, red hair turning to brown, amber eyes fading to chocolate. It wasn't the voice he was desperate to hear, but the voice of a friend nonetheless. He blinked heavily and tried to focus. His mind was fuzzy, it felt cushioned somehow.

"Iz?"

"Hey sleeping beauty, have you got nothing better to do than sleep all day? Welcome back."

Allowing his eyes to wander around the white sterile room he frowned and tried to sit up, but Iz's hands and panicked eyes stopped him.

"Whoa Omer, you're in the hospital, remember? Steady. You can't sit up."

His eyes moved past her hands, down to his leg, raised high above the bed and he allowed his head to flop back onto the pillow. The accident, Eda. Defne was in his past. It was all coming back now. He was hooked up to a drip, a monitor beeping quietly in the background, a window open beside him allowed a gentle breeze to ruffle the curtains.

"How long have I been here exactly?"

Iz smirked and let her hands fall back by her side, perching herself on the side of his bed.

"5 days. What kind of drugs do they have you on? I can't believe we're having this conversation again."

"5 days? Where's Eda? Is she okay?"

Omer's eyes searched his friend's face for an answer, and the darkness that passed through her eyes made a swell of panic rise in him. But just as quickly it was gone and Iz was smiling at him reassuringly.

"Eda is fine, she had surgery for her broken leg two days ago, she's recovering.... what do you remember?"

Omer closed his eyes and pinched his brow, focusing.

"We were driving, on our way to the hospital... I turned to look at her and I don't know... something hit us... I hit something, I'm not sure. I just remember the car spinning and spinning and then it was rolling. There was smoke and the smell of fuel. Then..... nothing.... I remember nothing."

Iz nodded, her face serious. "It looks like you hit the central reservation, your car spun across the road and then down an embankment. Your leg was broken. Which is why you'll need to put up with another few weeks of traction, God help those poor doctors and nurses."

Her attempts at levity fell flat as silence reigned in the room.

"And Eda?"

Iz sighed and moved back to her plastic hospital chair at his side. "She suffered a crush injury as well as a break... but Omer, I'm not family, they won't tell me more than that. From what I understand, she's okay. She will recover. There's nothing to worry about."

"I need to see her. It was my fault..."

"You can't right now. But as soon as she's feeling a bit better, I'll arrange a facetime call so you can check in on her. Okay?"

Omer nodded, some of the tension leaving him at the confirmation that Eda would at the very least recover from her injuries.

"So.... I've flown all the way from Marseilles, are you at least going to tell me how we've gotten from a wedding to a new girlfriend in 3 months?"